NBC News chief political analyst Chuck Todd criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for avoiding interviews after almost 40 days of her presidential campaign. He suggested that her strategy has raised the stakes for her first interview and reinforced negative perceptions.
Vice President Kamala Harris' decision to avoid media interviews for nearly 40 days into her presidential campaign has drawn criticism from NBC News chief political analyst Chuck Todd, who called it a "mistake." On Wednesday, Todd wrote on NBC News' website that the Harris campaign's "first big mistake" was that it had "raised the stakes" of her first interview by lying low for almost 40 days.
Todd argued that Harris should have granted interviews with various outlets, including local ones, to diffuse the perception of her being inaccessible. "I think the easiest way to diffuse this is to go everywhere… doing local interviews, doing a podcast here, she can go to friendly places, go to unfriendly places," Todd said on NBC News Now.
Harris' Media Avoidance Called 'Mistake' as First Interview Approaches
By focusing on a single high-profile interview, Todd suggested that the Harris campaign has drawn undue attention to it and made every potential fumble subject to excessive scrutiny. "The idea when you sort of try to be, you know, laser focused like this… we're going to gravitate to the big event. If there are six interviews, we're all overwhelmed… Everything gets diluted," he said.
Todd believes Harris' media avoidance has reinforced a negative stereotype associated with her, that of being indecisive and overly cautious. "So I really think it only sort of reinforces this negative stereotype that she had coming into this race, which is, you know, she hand-wrings too much, she's a little- takes too long. There's a fine line between being deliberative and being paralyzed by a decision, and the way they've handled this media stuff- you know, I get it. It is not as important as we think it is. But the way they've handled it, I think, is a bit- it's been a mistake," Todd continued.
Harris' Media Avoidance Called 'Mistake' as First Interview Approaches
Comparing Harris' strategy to that of former President Donald Trump in 2016, Todd suggested that Harris could learn from Trump's approach. "There's this allergy to ever doing something that Donald Trump did. But the Donald Trump of 2016- not this guy. This version- he hides from mainstream media quite a bit, but the 2016 version… he did interviews all over the place. Left, right and center, friendly interviews, adversarial interviews, he'd do three or four in a day. In some ways, he preferred that than actually campaigning on the trail," Todd said.
"But what he successfully did is he never made one interview matter, right? It ends up diluting. So just the way they've handled this, and I just think they're now just playing into her perceived weakness. And, you know, any fumble now is going to get overly scrutinized in this interview, unnecessarily so."
Harris' Media Avoidance Called 'Mistake' as First Interview Approaches
Harris' first interview, a joint appearance with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on CNN, is scheduled for Thursday afternoon and will air in primetime. It comes after a month of growing scrutiny for Harris' avoidance of interviews and press conferences, which intensified after last week's Democratic National Convention.
Harris is expected to face questions about policy shifts she has made since becoming the Democratic nominee, as well as her knowledge of President Biden's mental decline. Walz is also likely to be questioned about his military service record and his left-wing policies as governor.
Harris' Media Avoidance Called 'Mistake' as First Interview Approaches
